“He's focused, his intensity - his tail of all things tells the story.

“He'll pick up odour and you'll see than how he works the odour to try and locate the highest point of where the contamination is.

“When he does that, he's an active response dog, he'll scratch at the highest level and we can than sample there to get an idea of what the concentrations are” Greg said.

Norm's motivation's simple - if he finds a contaminated site, Greg will play with him.

“When we introduce a target odour we introduce or build an association with the toy, which we call a dolly and the target odour, and then we introduce that odour and then it's just play play play and then we start to hide his dolly and so then if he wants his toy - use your nose,” Greg said.

But it's not always fun and games.

The chemicals that Norm searches for were once used to control insect pests in livestock and agriculture.

These orgaonchlorines started causing problems for cattle producers in 1987 when high levels of pesticide found in export meat almost resulted in the total ban on Australian beef exports to the United States.

More than 350 farms were quarantined and producers stood to lose half their export market.

“A lot of properties were quarantined and very intensive testing programs went on for at least three years after that period of time,” Cattle Council Australia spokesman Mike Hill said.

“The cost of that particular was in the several hundred million dollars in that year.

“There was compensation paid by that particular company - it was very large, but the damage to the industry was immense, even today those memories reverberate in our overseas countries,” he said.

The longevity of those so-called “wonder chemicals” is what's causing problems now.

When cattle graze, tiny amounts of contaminated soil are ingested, eventually lodging in the animals fat.

Allison Crook, a vet and manager of the Dog Detection Program saw the need for a departure from traditional methods of residue management.

“The program was started in 1997 as a feasibility project [and] it was suggested that dogs would be a good option for detecting OC's, an efficient and effective option,” Allison said.

“At first it was a bit of a ‘ha-ha’ idea and than it progressed further where we actually put out a tender for someone to train a dog and than it actually happened.

“We trained a dog for OC detection and it just went from there,” she said.

While it's fifteen years since the chemicals were prohibited, producers like Tony and Gaylene Anderson are still dealing with the repercussions.

“I suppose in hindsight this situation could occur fairly frequently in any of the established places in rural areas because of the practices that were expected in the past are now somewhat of a risk to our production,” Tony said.

Their new block was declared a “suspect property” because its history was unclear, so Norm and Greg paid them a visit.

“I think the owners that were previous to us were mainly running it for a hay and stud cattle operation but it has had a history previous to those mainly as a dairy, but that's going back nearing a number of years,” Tony said.

“We had to look at confirming our risk status and that's when they thought the dog would be a better option,” he said.

While Norm was able to detect the problem area, he couldn't point to the cause.

Usual “hot-spots” range from old cattleyards, dips, sheds to dump sites, but for the Anderson's the site of contamination wasn't what you'd expect.

“It's a little bit difficult to explain because it's not in any obvious structure, it’s not around a post, it’s on the edge of a concrete slab which is basically there as a base for a silo or work area - I can only believe that it was possibly somewhere where they used to mix up product, that's the only explanation I can really come to and it possibly leaked with the concentration that's there,” Tony said.

Fortunately for Tony and Gaylene, Norm's visit came in the nick of time and their cattle hadn't had a chance to explore the area.

“The timing of the dog was actually pretty critical in hindsight because we hadn't had a chance to really move into the place as such,” Tony said.

“And that's probably one of the biggest advantages about it.

“Knowing that we were able to store hay on the opposite side of the shed that we know have turned up clean,” he said.

Once the problem area had been identified, the Anderson's were able to take steps to fix the situation.

But before the property was deemed “clear” Greg had to give the okay.

Steven Mead wasn't as fortunate.

His stock had already set-up camp in and around an old hayshed.

“Well the hayshed was actually full of hay when we bought the place and you know - don't want to waste it, so I was actually feeding that hay to the cattle, so wherever the dust and dirt in the hay was were they picked it up,” Steven said.

His cattle tested positive with an extremely high level of Dieldrin and his property was quarantined.

“Well, that beast went down the chute and I had to go down and pick the other one up, that's if it wanted it back and than they apparently notified the DPI and it snowballed from there” Steven said.

Last year Norm and Greg visited close to one hundred properties ranging from Toorak, near Julia Creek in Queensland, down to the Hunter Valley in New South Wales.

While it's certainly a full-time job, Norm doesn't work like a dog.

He enjoys weekends off and one day a week is devoted to maintenance training.

“Primary goal really is to make sure that they're hitting their odour and giving the right responses,” Greg said.

“Each job's different in that you come up against different situations that are new to the dog and you try to guide the dog around that,” he said.

What Greg's learnt from training Norm, is now being applied to two new acquisitions, which are proving to be a handful.

Like Norm, these dogs will be trained to look for specific chemical groups.

“At the moment Norm's fully imprinted on five odours so we fully maintain him on five,” Allison said.

“That proves a good workload and than when you multiply that by three dogs it proves an even better workload,” she said.

But it won't be too much for the dogs.

While 75 percent of sniffer dogs in the United States break down after two years due to stress, Norm turned five last November and is still going strong.

In fact he's expected to keep on working for another four-to-five years or until the moment he stops enjoying the job.

Norm's sense of smell is one million times keener than the human nose.

Not only does he boast 98 per cent accuracy, he also has the ability to “map-out” or define a contaminated area.

“Initially we wanted him to find the hot-spots and now he's developed to where he can virtually map out a site,” Greg said.

“If it was an old dip-site where the fluid was pumped out we are now able to define that area so if people are wanting to remediate that area we can than give those people an area to work by,” he said.

And they've got their work cut out for them, with countless properties across Australia requiring such mapping.

That's something producers are realistic about.

“I think it'll be with us forever. If you look at the depletion times for OC's, we've got OC's in and round the soil, it'll be around for another 50 years,” Mike Hill said.

But at least with this sniffer dog team on the case, producers can be confident that if they are plagued by chemical residue, Norm and Greg will find it.

“We certainly contribute to maintaining our markets, that's what we're about is market protection and certainly introducing a tool that enables us to do our part is certainly rewarding,” Greg said.

Current world production of seafood is almost 130 million tonnes a year, with 90+ million tonnes from the wild and over 30+ million tonnes from aquaculture.

Australia is the world's third largest wheat exporter with about a 16 per cent global market share.

Around two-thirds of Zimbabwe's workforce rely on agriculture for employment.

WEATHER
The latest weather reports and statistics are available from the Bureau of Meteorology website.MUSIC
Our clip of the week is Dancing Shoes, performed by Carter & Carter. | Play clip |BOOKSLook through the collection of Landline book reviews.CONTACT USlandline@your.abc.net.au
Tel: +617 3377 5622
Fax: +617 3377 5631
GPO Box 9994
BRISBANE 4001